


A Small Plot of Land

by tinamachina



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinamachina/pseuds/tinamachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For LJ's commentfic prompt: "Toby's garden is Jareth's favourite bit of the Labyrinth."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Plot of Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EffingEden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/gifts).



There was a reason why Jareth wore gloves. The King of the Goblins never got his hands dirty.

So when Toby wanted to plant a garden, Jareth allowed it, but refused to help. The Labyrinth was a wild thing, so it might not take kindly to some mortal kid digging holes in it, changing it, planting something that did not belong. There were lots of sinkholes and cranky creatures living in the ground, so it made for rather hostile farming conditions. Anything that the Labyrinth did not like was either swallowed into the earth with a rude burp or smashed by a shifting wall.

When Toby dug his spade into the soil, it did not bite and it did not protest. Toby found some local flora from outside the Labyrinth—ruby-roses, mermaid-slippers, panther-lillies—and planted them, watered them, even snatched some feral fairies for pest control (Hoggle was not happy with that last part, which pleased Jareth.)

Jareth did not expect anything to grow out of Toby’s little patch behind the castle, but the boy was persistent, and patient, even when whip-root snapped at the boy’s legs and a few irritated gnomes bit at his thumbs. Toby’s garden not only took root and grew, but bloomed. Toby added some veggies—some candy-berries, pump-tomatoes (tomatoes the size of pumpkins), wolf-ear cabbage, until the tiny, throw-away patch of soil became a proper royal garden.

Jareth was amazed. Never had he seen the Labyrinth open itself to a human boy. Jareth, himself, had to fight and claw his way into the Labyrinth, subjugating it all under his iron grip. And yet Toby, with little more than a bucket of gardening tools and a gentle hand, planted himself into the wild maze, and it welcomed him.

Jareth picked a plump candy-berry between his fingers, but Toby smacked it out of his hand. 

“If you want one, your highness, you’ll have to help,” Toby scolded him, handing Jareth a pair of elbow-length gardening gloves.

Such insolence would have earned anyone else a dip in the Bog of Eternal Stench, but instead, Jareth begrudgingly smiled and accepted the gloves. He had no intention of burrowing around like a mole.

However, it did not take long before Jareth was kneeling beside Toby, soil coating his knee-high padded boots, as the king tended to a row of grump-potatoes that complained about being plucked from perfectly nice, warm earth. Jareth’s gloves got very dirty.

The fruit made good fae-wine, as Jareth and Toby admired their handiwork over a goblet. Jareth was exhausted, but Toby looked happy.

The garden became the Goblin King’s most favorite spot in all the Underground.


End file.
